"Very ordinary"
is Ozspeak for "sucks rocks". I'm using it in the US sense. Two friends
complained I don't post pictures as often as I used to. I told them that stuff
around town had become routine. I was told to rise above it. So here are a few
pictures of everyday things that would have merited posting a year ago.

People ask what
Oz food is like. Here's a cafe menu that's a pretty fair sample. As you can
tell, there's a strong English influence. (An Australian company recently announced
a plan to market meat pies at US football games. Hot dogs are rare here, and
are always referred to as "American hot dogs".) There's also a strong
Italian influence, since there's been a lot of immigration from central and
eastern Europe. I've mentioned iced tea is unheard of, but every restaraunt
has lemon lime bitters. The right to an after-dinner capuccino is enshrined
in the Constitution, and I'm sure when I get back to the US, I'm going to get
wierd looks by ordering one in an Indian restraunt, like I did tonight.

Feeling cheerful?
We can help!

Everyone complains
about Canberra winters (highs in the mid-50s) like it was Minnesota. We don't
go to the beach every day after work like they do in Sydney, Melbourne, Cairns,
Darwin, Perth and every other proper Australian city, and the fish (amazingly
fresh by US standards) suffers on its 2.5 hour trip from the coast. Despite
all the complaining, there's never a day so cold that people aren't eating lunch
outdoors. Here's lunch at a Malaysian restaraunt (also plentiful here) in Manuka,
a somewhat upscale neighborhood, in the middle of freakin' July.

View from
my balcony, winter morning.

Spring morning

The CISAC web
site has a better picture than the one I took. Here's where I swim, in one of
Canberra's three Olympic sized pools. (Swimming is the natural sport, after
AFL.)

I think I
mentioned the birds are georgeous but unphotographable. All you have to do is
look at them and they're gone. Here's a king parrot I caught on the wing.

This bird,
along with the Galah (red/gray parrot), magpie and corrowang, are the most frequent
roadside birds. You'll see flocks of them fussing in the trees or feasting in
the median.

Sundial at
the botanical gardens, one of my favorite places to hang out.

No comment.

Subtle graffiti.
Sign on the right is on the highway to the Snowy Mountains.

The US gave
this fine piece of Gondorian sculpture to Oz to commemorate their role in WWII.

The locals
reverently call it "Bugs Bunny".

Yankee Go
Home: Riding for the airport at 6AM, a huge orange sun sat on the horizon. "Forest
fire, " I commented. "Global warming," said the cabbie. "Just
kidding."